Worst Book Reviews: Michiko Kakutani's 11 Meanest Reviews

FRANKFURT/MAIN, GERMANY: British novelist Zadie Smith gestures during a presentation of the German translation of her book 'On Beauty' at the international Frankfurt Book Fair 04 October 2006. 'On Beauty', her third novel, was published in September 2005 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. AFP PHOTO JOHN MACDOUGALL (Photo credit should read JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

Don't write off "NW" just yet, though--Kakutani has a history of directing big-time insults at big-name authors. She dismissed Nick Hornby's "A Long Way Down" as "cringe-making excuse for a novel," and summed up Jonathan Franzen's memoir as a "portrait of the artist as a young jackass."

Norman Mailer nursed a long-term grudge against the reviewer, accusing her of deliberately harming sales by trashing books long before their publication dates. He told Rolling Stone that Kakutani was "a one-woman kamikazi," rudely referring to her Japanese heritage.

There's no doubt that Kakutani can be, to use her own kind of superlative, grotesquely nasty. (She can also be overly effusive in her praise, calling minor works "transcendent" and comparing writers like Donna Tartt to Euripides.) She often uses three vitriolic adjectives when one would do. Further, she appears to have undergone a humorectomy; there's rarely a whiff of wit in her putdowns, certainly nothing on the level of, say, Capote's take on Kerouac: "That's not writing, it's typewriting."

She also has a knack for reusing the same words and references: "limn" and J.D. Salinger are among her favorites.

Still, Kakutani has been reviewing books for the Times for nearly three decades, and has won a Pulitzer for her efforts, so her opinions are generally well-regarded and her influence is broad.

Whether you think she's a valiant defender of quality or a cranky iconoclast, it's fun to chuckle at her nastiest digs. Here are 11 of Michiko Kakutani's harshest book reviews: